Add-Ons! Sponges! Pocket / Win 10 gets the Boss Update

Posted on Oct 21, 2016
by Owen Hill

Wet sponges - I’ve recently discovered that babies like to suck on them, which is kinda gross to be honest. But let’s not worry about that for now. Minecraft: Pocket Edition and the Windows 10 Edition beta are being updated to 0.16 today, bringing loads of new features, most of which are not in the slightest bit soggy.

First: Add-Ons. These are kind of a big deal. Add-Ons allow anyone to change the way a Minecraft world works. You could, for example, change chickens’ behavior so you can ride them or make creepers even more explodey than they already are. You could take all of your memories, program them into a villager, then study its behaviour to help determine what you should do next with your life. Not sure about that actually, but Add-Ons are most definitely cool.

They could change the way you play Minecraft forever. And you can even share them with friends and family over Realms. Check out our dedicated page for more info and to see exciting examples of possible creations. And if you do end up dabbling in Add-Ons provide us with feedback so we can make them even better!

This update also brings the ability to upload and download your worlds to Minecraft Realms. That opens up a wealth of options. You can take your offline worlds and start sharing them with friends, download a Realm for those times you don’t have an internet connection, or use Realms to make regular backups of your offline worlds.

As if all that wasn’t enough, this update also brings life to a whole new part of your Minecraft worlds. Until now, Pocket and Windows 10 players haven’t had a reason to explore the depths but this update brings Ocean Monuments and their underwater inhabitants - Guardians and Elder Guardians - along with all kinds of water-themed goodness including sea lanterns, prismarine, and more. Go deep and explore!

OK! Enough blabbering! Here’s the full changelog!

[UPDATE: this list originally included entries for F3 support and coordinates, but these didn’t make it into this release after all. Soz.]

New Features

Ocean Monuments

Guardians and Elder Guardians

Prismarine, dark prismarine & prismarine bricks

Prismarine shard & prismarine crystal

Sea lantern

The Wither!

Nether star

Beacon

Wet & dry sponges

Slash commands (with a handy auto complete feature). Enable cheats for a world in the options screen for access, but note that Xbox Live achievements will be disabled when you’re using ‘em!

Custom key bindings! Hooray for lefties!

A new Creative inventory search feature

Add-On section for world settings

You can change game modes in Realms (note that doing this will restart the realm)

Ability to upload & download worlds in Realms

Ability to promote players as operators in Realms

Tweaks

UI improvements!

Performance improvements!

Tweaks to various mob action/behavior triggers, including fixing creeper explosions